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Video overzicht

Leer hoe je je Nexus 7 kunt repareren met dit video-overzicht.

Inleiding

Google announced the Nexus 7 at their I/O keynote on June 27, 2012. Five days later, we tore one down. Some are calling the Nexus 7 a 'Kindle Fire killer,' but can it stack up to the Fire's impressive 8 out of 10 repairability score? We just had to find out.

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When we first heard about the Nexus 7, we assumed it was the secret Pentagon program: "A controversial intelligence program…known as Nexus 7, previously undisclosed as a war-zone surveillance effort, it ties together everything from spy radars to fruit prices..."

Alas, this Nexus 7 is from the other intelligence agency: Google. Even though it's not a secret Pentagon initiative, it does feel pretty stealthy and versatile for $200.

The white back of our Nexus proves it was an I/O original. And what's that? It's running an iFixit app? That's right folks; as of today, you can natively view our repair manuals on your Android device. Download now!

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The front case assembly has exactly what we always expect inside a tablet: a big battery.

The Nexus 7 has a 4326 mAh, 16 Wh battery that can last 9:49 hours. The Kindle Fire, by comparison, has a 4400 mAh, 16.28 Wh battery -- but only lasts 7:42 hours. Go figure.

For further comparison, this time falls right in between the batteries found in the 2012 iPad models, which have 9:52 hours for HSPA and 9:37 hours for LTE. Except that the iPad 3 units are slightly larger at 42.5 Wh / 11500 mAh.

Unlike the iPad batteries, this battery was actually quite easy to remove; there was only a small amount of adhesive around the metal frame.

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We are eager to get to that motherboard, but it seems we have another goodie to pull off it first.

Seated on the top left of the motherboard is one of the two microphones.

One of the new features in Jelly Bean is improved voice recognition. Is it as good as Siri? Will it remind you to put the gazpacho on ice? We would tell you the answers to these questions, but the microphone probably doesn't do us much good in its current state.

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Here we have the 7-inch, 1280x800 HD display, manufactured by Hydis and designated model HV070WX2.

As is becoming a trend, the LCD is fused to the Corning glass. We have not heard if this glass is Gorilla Glass or Gorilla Glass 2, and we have broken far too many displays recently to dig any further.

Sadly, this fusion makes the cost of repairing shattered glass much higher, as it will require replacing the whole display assembly—LCD included.

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34 Opmerkingen

Excellent write-up! You created a little bit of a buzz with your comment in step 2 that the Nexus 7 includes a usb to hdmi adapter. Could you possibly confirm that this cable is, in fact, included and functions? Every other write-up about the Nexus 7 makes no mention of this cable and actually states that there is no MHL capability.

Directly comparing thicknesses between this and the iPad and attributing it to the retaining system alone is probably one of the silliest things I've read on iFixit.

Maybe the result wouldn't help with your agenda so much, but surely an honest analysis would to consider the extra battery (iPad's battery being over 2.6x larger) and display thickness (iPad's display needing a much stronger backlight).

Please figure it out correctly and rewrite Step 4. As it stands it's about as honest as a politician, which I hope is not where you guys are going with this.

Silly perhaps in style... Apple often dismisses the lack of serviceability by claiming that certain assembly methods are necessary to provide the thinnest and lightest package at an feasible cost. Given the spirit of the ifixit’s “Repairability Score”, the rhetoric employed by the author seems perfectly valid to me. I read this section as a challenge to Apple to do better. But I suspect the truth about why Apple does packaging the way the do is as follows: 1. Make it harder for users and competitors to see what's really inside, 2. Make it harder and more expensive to repair the devices, which leads to reason 3. Maximize profits- A very small part of which is reducing manufacturing costs, the major capitalization of this approach comes from encouraging users to upgrade every few years and skip all that DIY fixit stuff. Non-user replaceable batteries are a sure fire way to guarantee the finite lifecycle of any given device.